Passive monitoring of atmospheric heavy metals in a historical city of central India by Lepraria lobificans Nyl.

Abstract

Using an organism living in situ for monitoring is referred as passive monitoring. Lepraria lobificans Nyl., a leprose lichen growing naturally on monuments and buildings in the city Mandav in central India is used for passive monitoring of atmospheric metals. Seven metals (Cd, Cr, Ni, Al, Fe, Cu, and Zn) were analyzed. Samples collected from road site exhibit the maximum concentration of Fe, Cd, Cr, Ni, and Zn. Iron exhibit maximum accumulation both in lichen thallus and the substratum with mean values of 2,195.63 microg g(-1) dry weight. As compared with other growth form of lichens, L. lobificans exhibits the higher accumulation of Fe than foliose and fruticose lichens. On the basis of these results, it can be hypothesized that L. lobificans is an excellent accumulator of different metals. The statistical analysis applied to the element concentration between the metals as well as between the sites by analysis of variance found the difference to be significant at 1% and 5%, respectively. Student-Newman-Keuls test also shows significant difference for iron between the different metals.

Biodiversity, bioaccumulation and physiological changes in lichens growing in the vicinity of coal-based thermal power plant of Raebareli district, north India

“…As a result destabilization of the ecosystem has occurred with loss of several sensitive plant species [10]. A lot of passive as well as active (transplant) biomonitoring studies using lichen have been carried out in India by several workers in different climatic regions of the country against various pollution sources [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]; but such studies around thermal power plant area are lacking.…”

Diversity of epiphytic lichens and their role in sequestration of atmospheric metals

“…Considerably high amount of Pb was possibly due to vehicular emission and other industrial activities in and around the city (Russellflegal et al 2010;Kar et al 2010Kar et al , 2013. Pb was found to be efficiently accumulated by lichens from aerosols and metal fall out as reported earlier (Cloquet et al 2006;Bajpai et al 2010b). However, relatively heavy traffic conditions by automobiles could have been the primary cause for the Pb accumulation.…”

“…Absorption and accumulation of metals by lichens from the contaminated atmosphere were reported worldwide (Clair et al 2002;Adamo et al 2008;Bajpai et al 2010bBajpai et al , 2011. Therefore, lichens have been used to monitor atmospheric depositions of a large number of metals and act as an air filter particularly in urban environment.…”

Lichen as Bioindicator for Monitoring Environmental Status in Western Himalaya, India

“…These unique organisms are very sensitive and able to accumulate a range of atmospheric pollutants (Shukla and Upreti, 2008;Shukla and Upreti, 2012;Bajpai et al, 2014). These qualities of the organism attract the environment monitoring workers to use it as a bioindicator to determine the degree and intensity of atmospheric pollution (Sloof et al, 1988;Nimis et al, 1993;Bajpai et al, 2010;Khare et al, 2010;Rai et al, 2012;Van der Wat and Forbes, 2015). Lichen species are highly habitat and climate specific and form the specific communities in different macroclimates (Eldridge and Rosentreter, 1999;Will-wolf et al, 2002;Zedda et al, 2011;Rai et al, 2012).…”